Why do some citizens in established democracies prefer ‘strongman’ leaders? Is this preference really an expression of anti-democratic attitudes? Existing research primarily examines the scope and contextual predictors of anti-democratic attitudes; by contrast, we aim to understand what citizens actually mean when they express these attitudes. Most citizens in advanced democracies do not have experience with authoritarian leadership and the desire for a 'strong man' may have different meanings. This might range from a full-fledged preference for a dictator to a wish for a democrat who ‘gets things done’. While dissatisfaction with democracy or low perceptions of responsiveness could drive both perspectives, their consequences and antidotes are markedly different. To examine whether citizens see democratic values and strongman leadership as at odds with one another, we conduct a survey experiment that measures respondents’ preferences for 'strongman’ leadership. We use vignettes that evoke images of functional and dysfunctional democratic and authoritarian decision making. We then measure agreement to a range of possible underlying democratic and authoritarian ideas and compare their stated preferences for strongman leaders to their revealed preferences for democracy and autocracy. Our study builds on an emerging literature on support for democracy and authoritarian regimes, as well as existing literature on input and output legitimacy.
